How to access a Quicken Subscription file from both accounts/desktops on one computer.

mackim

My wife and I share an iMac M1. I manage our Quicken subscription and am able to access it from my iPhone and iPad as well. I have not found a way for my wife to open our joint Quicken file and work with it on her own desktop, other than to use Quicken Web. Is there a way she can use the Quicken App and access our common data?

Jon

If you're both using the same Mac, you could try putting your Quicken file in the /Users/Shared folder; I've never experimented with that but it sounds like you'd have to change the permissions on the file in order for both of you to have read/write access:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/share-files-with-others-who-use-your-mac-mchlp1122/mac

You can't put the file on iCloud or other similar cloud storage services, or in locations on your Mac that are synced to iCloud; it will eventually become corrupted.

RickO

I don't recommend keeping your file in Users > Shared because you can run into the same kind of file-corrupting permissions errors as when storing the file in the cloud. In fact, you may find that Quicken will refuse to open the file from one of the user accounts even though the permissions seem to be set properly.

Here's what I do recommend: Create a third mac user account on the iMac with a name like "Quicken". Right click on the Quicken file in your account and Compress it. Take the resulting .zip file and move it to the new mac user account (using a cloud service or thumb drive, etc.) Then log into the new Quicken user account and double click the .zip file to decompress it. Going forward, when either of you wants to work with Quicken, you would log out of your personal mac user account and log into the mac Quicken user account. I realize this is a bit of a pain, but it is probably the safest way to proceed.

mackim

Thanks, RickO. I assumed that our data was kept in the cloud since we can access it from our other devices as well as on the Web App. I just set up my wife’s Mac user account for web access, so perhaps that will do. She can sign into my desktop any time, so that would be easier than creating a third account. It sounds like we’ve gone as far as we can go. Thanks for your help and info.

RickO

Only some of your data is in the cloud. The Quicken mobile and web apps are only companion apps to the Quicken Desktop file on your computer. They do not contain all the data and importantly, they cannot be used to restore a corrupt, lost or damaged desktop file.

I think you're on the right track. With your wife having access to (some of) the data via the Quicken Web app (in Safari), she'll probably be able to do most of what she needs to do (like entering and viewing transactions) from there. If she needs to use functions that only exist in the Quicken Classic app on the Mac, then she can log into your mac user account. That's the best of both worlds and should serve you well.

Here's some info on some of the limitations of Quicken on the Web:

https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-web-frequently-asked-questions/